Don’t just cherry-pick — the real value comes from the whole fruit salad  

It’s easy to focus on your ‘best’ customers — the ones who love what you do and give glowing feedback. But if you only get feedback from those voices, your NPS might look great while hiding the full story and you will probably miss opportunities to improve performance and revenue.  

To truly understand your Customer Experience (CX), you need to hear from every account, not just the easy ones. Some of your more challenging customers may hold the key to growth you haven’t unlocked yet.  

So, do you ask them all or choose a sample?   

Using a sample across all your accounts will cut down the work involved, but how do you get a truly representative sample? A random sample will give a representative picture but will ignore the value of those customers. So, better approaches are to group clients into revenue bands and take larger samples from the higher value groups. 

A more sophisticated approach is to use an automated revenue weighted sample which aligns your company’s revenue profile exactly, without the need for manual banding. Of course there are aways customers with high potential, so identifying and including this important group is also key. Separate analysis of the representative group and the high potential additional group can be really interesting. 

So how big should your CX sample be? 

In short, the best approach is to include everyone. However, this will involve more work and the ability to manage volume. And are all the responses equal? A pineapple isn’t the same as a pear and ensuring you can identify the most important responses if you’re including most, or all, of your customer contacts is something to think about. 

With this inclusive approach your scores may of course dip at first, but the insights you gain will be far more valuable. A complete view helps you spot issues early, protect your happiest customers and strengthen your overall customer relationships.  

Every business is different, which is why tailored questions and a review of past surveys matter. A well designed CX survey doesn’t just gather data — it closes the loop on complaints, highlights problems you can fix and builds trust.  

What to look for in a survey partner   

• They handle the customer selection for you, ensuring a complete and unbiased sample. 

• An established platform and an experienced team will ensure your survey runs faster – and can be run in all required languages. 

• You’re given actionable results, showing your strengths and opportunities by country and business unit. 

• You receive a clear action plan, focused on what your customers value most and where improvements will drive the biggest impact. 

• Growth opportunities are visible, helping you target marketing and sales efforts more effectively. 

Ready to squeeze more juice out of your CX surveys? Let’s talk about how any-3 can help you do things differently.